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Addresses delivered 



BY 

PRESIDENT WOODROW WILSON 

AND 

GEO. A. POST 

BEFORE THE 

RAILWAY BUSINESS ASSOCIATION 

National ory;anization of manufac- 
turing, mercantile and engineering 
concerns which deal with steam 
railways on the occasion of its 
Seventh Annual Dinner at the 
Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, New York, 
Jan. 27, 1916 



Bu. of R»Uv*y iSconomiCa 






Address by 

Geo. A. Post 

President of the Association 



THERE is a word that has, dur- 
ing the past year and a half, 
come into conspicuous, con- 
stant and serious use throughout 
our country, the utterance of 
which immediately causes a copious 
flow of other words to be used 
with reference thereto — some hot, 
some cool, some wise and some 
otherwise. That word is : PRE- 
PAREDNESS. In all our country 
wide, there probably could not be as- 
sembled an audience, the personnel 
of which would have a more compre- 
hensive understanding of its signifi- 
cance, than does this vast throng. It 
is the business of most of those here 
gathered to be ready for any and 
every emergency. 

The industries that support, and 
that are represented by, the Railway 
Business Association are, of neces- 
sity, always looking to the future, 
planning to meet its demands. We 
know that the implement or method 
adequate or suitable for to-day will 
become inadequate and unsuitable 
for the exactions and situations of 
to-morrow. To the rear sags the man 
content with the achievements of yes- 
terday; to the fore strides he who 
with prophetic vision penetrates the 
veil which hides the future from those 
who will not or can not look ahead 



and bestir themselves. By serious 
study, sober reasoning, costly ex- 
periment, courageous investment, 
and effective organization, the emer- 
gent hour is faced with confidence, 
unexpected complications are coped 
with, safety is assured and success is 
secured. We are not unacquainted 
with the coward who would venture 
nothing, the penurious who would 
spend nothing, the indolent who 
would do nothing, the critic who 
carps at everything that does not 
originate with him, and the vision- 
ary who bawls loudly for the instant 
approval of anything that he thinks 
he thinks. We know better than to 
run away from trouble, for as we 
flee it will surely overtake us, being 
unopposed. By facing it manfully, 
we can at least palliate it, perhaps, 
or by the might of right over- 
whelm it. 

We are prepared for the shocks of 
commercial contest, proud of the 
fact that we are important factors 
in the upbuilding of the greatness of 
our country. We do not prate as 
much about our patriotism as do 
some who are not as busy doing real 
things as we, but we are patriotic all 
the same. We are considerably in- 
terested in this land of the free and 
home of the brave. We love it. Du- 



ties falling to us to perform in its de- 
fence, will be performed Avith all our 
brains, equipment, resources, and 
hearts. With alacrity will we par- 
ticipate in councils for the maturing 
and effectuation of plans conceived 
for the industrial preparedness of 
our nation. 

In our associated capacity, we 
have, during the past seven years, 
taken cognizance of the necessity for 
preparedness on the part of our rail- 
ways. Their preparedness for the 
tonnage of peace is vital to the wel- 
fare of every citizen of the country. 
It is for that we have labored, per- 
sistently, earnestly, and with civil 
tongue. If their preparedness as an 
arm of national defence now looms 
large as of gravest importance, then, 
indeed, must the efforts of our Asso- 
ciation be re-doubled, and the atti- 
tude of all citizens toward them must 
be that of appreciation of their 
needs, and an understanding of the 
impotence of our country in time of 
peril if they shall be impoverished 
in resources and inadequate in equip- 
ment. Railroads in the hands of Re- 
ceivers are prepared only to suc- 
cumb to the Sheriff 's hammer. Rail- 
roads without a surplus are a men- 
ace to the prosperity and safety 
of all whom they should serve in 
peace or in case of invasion. For the 
railroads we ask nothing they do not 
deserve, nothing that shall do hurt 
to anyone, but we do ask for them 
everything that will make them 
strong — strong in peace, strong for 
national defence, and strong in the 
confidence of the public, which con- 
fidence they are striving mightily to 
win. 



You, sir, our welcome and illus- 
trious guest, whom we delight to 
honor to-night, in your memorable 
letter to that distinguished railway 
executive, Mr. Frank Trumbull, 
who, happily, and to our pleasure, is 
at our board upon this occasion, 
said: 

"The laws must speak plainly 
and effectively against whatever is 
wrong, or against the public in- 
terest, and these laws must be ob- 
served ; for the rest, and within the 
sphere of legitimate enterprise, we 
must all stand as one to see jus- 
tice done and all fair assistance 
rendered, and rendered ungrudg- 
ingly." 

To that sentiment, in behalf of all 
whose interests abide in the realm of 
transportation, I utter an unctuous 
''Amen!" 

In your recent address to the Con- 
gress you said : 

"The transportation problem is 
an exceedingly serious and press- 
ing one in this country. There has 
from time to time of late been rea- 
son to fear that our railroads 
would not much longer be able to 
cope with it siiccessfully, as at 
present equipped and co-ordinated. 
* * * It seems to me that it 
might be the part of wisdom, 
therefore, before further legisla- 
tion in this field is attempted, to 
look at the whole problem of co- 
ordination and efficiency in the 
full light of a fresh assessment of 
circumstance and opinion, as a 
guide to dealing with the several 
parts of it." 



A hope was thereby aroused in the 
breasts of those burdened with the 
responsibilities of railway manage- 
ment, and those to whom a wise solu- 
tion of our railway problems means 
the difference between solvency and 
bankruptcy, that from your recom- 
mendation there may come such a 
broad, deep, sincere governmental 
study of the reciprocal relations of 
the carrier and the carried, as shall 
result in legislation that shall bring 
peace and prosperity to a realm too 
long disturbed by animosities and 
reprisals, the outgrowth of condi- 
tions and practices to be forever 
ended. Shall there be need of or- 
ganization of our transportation sys- 
tems, so that they may become a uni- 
fied force for national protection, 
happy will be our people as they 
shall witness the masterful mental 
fertility, the indomitable energy, the 
eager willingness and devoted loy- 
alty to our country of the railway 
officials of the United States. 

Speaking of preparedness, this 



audience, so large in number and, in 
character so splendidly representa- 
tive of our nation's business, is now 
unanimously and thoroughly pre- 
pared, and has been all the time I 
have been talking — and impatient to 
do it — to show our Nation's Chief 
how deep is our appreciation of the 
highly prized honor he has done us 
by his acceptance of our invitation 
to speak to us to-night. While 
others may gaily and with care-free 
abandon tell in boisterous speech 
what they would do if they were he, 
upon his shoulders rest the crushing 
burdens of State, placed there by the 
Electorate. Resolute he stands for 
the honor of America, calm in mien, 
high in purpose, a patriot in every 
heartbeat, his words the mightiest in 
import that are uttered in our land. 
Rise, fellow Americans, you are 
now free to give enthusiastic expres- 
sion to your sentiments of respect, 
admiration, gratitude and welcome 
to 

OUR PRESIDENT! 



Address by the 

Hon. Woodrow Wilson 

President of the United States 



MR. TOASTMASTER, and 
Ladies and Gentlemen : 
The exactions of my ofiiicial 
duties have recently been so great that 
it has been very seldom indeed that I 
could give myself so great a pleasure 
as that which I am enjoying tonight. It 
is a great pleasure to come and be 
greeted in such generous fashion by 
men so thoughtful as yourselves and 
so deeply engaged in some of the most 
important undertakings of the nation; 
and I consider it a privilege to be per- 
mitted to lay before you some of the 
things to which we ought to give our 
most careful and deliberate considera- 
tion. 

America's New Position 

The question, it seems to me, which 
most demands clarification just now 
is the question to which your toast- 
master has referred, — the question of 
preparation for national defense. I say 
that it stands in need of clarification 
because, singularly enough, it has been 
deeply clouded by passion and preju- 
dice. It is very singular that a ques- 
tion, the elements of which are so 
simple and so obvious, should have 
been so beclouded by the discussion of 
men of high motive, men of purpose 
as handsome as any of us may claim, 
and yet apparently incapable of divest- 
ing themselves of that sort of provin- 
cialism which consists in thinking the 
contents of their own mind to be the 
contents of the mind of the world. 
For gentlemen, while America is a 
very great nation, while America con- 
tains all the elements of fine force and 



accomplishment, America does not 
constitute the major part of the world. 
We live in a world which we did not 
make, which we cannot alter, which 
we cannot think into a different condi- 
tion from that which actually exists. 
It would be a hopeless piece of pro- 
vincialism to suppose that because we 
think differently from the rest of the 
world, we are at liberty to assume 
that the rest of the world will permit 
us to enjoy that thought without dis- 
turbance. 

How Differ on National Safety f 

It is a surprising circumstance also 
that men should allow partisan feeling 
or personal ambition to creep into the 
discussion of this fundamental thing. 
How can Americans differ about the 
safety of America? 

And I, for my part, am ambitious 
that America should do a greater and 
more difficult thing than the great na- 
tions on the other side of the water 
have done. In all the belligerent coun- 
tries, men without distinction of party 
have drawn together to accomplish a 
successful prosecution of the war. Is 
it not a more difficult and a more de- 
sirable thing that all Americans should 
put partisan prepossession aside and 
draw together for the successful prose- 
cution of peace? I covet that distinc- 
tion for America, and I believe that 
America is going to enjoy that dis- 
tinction. 

Forgetting Party Lines 

Only the other day the leader of the 
Republican minority in the House of 



Representatives delivered a speech 
that showed that he was ready, 
and I take it for granted that 
the men behind him were ready, to 
forget party hnes in order that all men 
may act with a common mind and im- 
pulse for the service of the country. 
And I want, upon this first public oc- 
casion, to pay my tribute of respect 
and obligation to him. 

I find it very hard indeed to ap- 
proach this subject without very deep 
emotion, gentlemen, because when we 
speak of America and the things that 
are to be conserved in her, does it not 
call a wonderful picture into your 
mind? America is young still, she is 
not yet even in the heyday of her de- 
velopment and power. Think of the 
great treasures of youth and energy 
and ideal purpose still to be drawn 
from the deep sources from which this 
nation has always drawn its light. 

America Free to Help 

Think of the service which those 
forces can and must render to the 
rest of the world. Think of the posi- 
tion into which America has been 
drawn, almost in spite of herself, by 
the circumstances of the present day. 
She alone is free to help find things 
wherever they show themselves in the 
world. And she is forced, also, 
whether she will or no, in the decades 
immediately ahead of us, to furnish 
the world with its chief economic 
guidance and assistance. 

It is very fine to remember what 
ideals will be back of that assistance. 
Economic assistance in itself is not 
necessarily handsome. It is a legiti- 
mate thing to make money ; but it is 
not an ideal thing to make money. 
Money brings with it power, which 
may be well or ill employed. And it 
should be the pride of America always 
to employ her money to the highest 
purpose. Yet, if we are drawn into 
the maelstrom that now surges across 
the water and swirls even in the East- 
ern regions of the world, we shall not 
be permitted to keep a free hand to do 



tlie high things that we intend to do. 
And it is necessary that we should ex- 
amine ourselves and so order that we 
can make certain that the tasks im- 
posed upon us will be performed, and 
well performed. 

Provincial No Longer 

America has been reluctant to match 
her wits with the rest of the world. 
When I face a body of men like this 
it is almost incredible to remember 
that only yesterday they were afraid 
to put their wits into free competition 
with the world. The best brains in 
the world afraid to match brains with 
the rest of the world ! We have pre- 
ferred to be provincial. We have pre- 
ferred to stand behind protecting de- 
vices. And now, we are thrust out 
to do, on a scale never dreamed of in 
lecent generations in America, the 
business of the world. We can not 
longer be a provincial nation. 

Let no man dare to say, if he would 
speak the truth, that the question of 
preparation for national defense is a 
question of war or of peace. If there 
is one passion more deep seated in 
the hearts of our fellow countrymen 
than another, it is the passion for 
peace. No nation in the world ever 
more instinctively turned away from 
the thought of war than this nation to 
which we belong. Partly because, in 
the plenitude of its power, in the un- 
restricted area of its opportunities, it 
has found nothing to covet in the pos- 
sessions and power of other nations. 

Maintaining Peace 

There is no spirit of aggrandize- 
ment in America. There is no desire 
on the part of any thoughtful and con- 
scientious American man to take one 
foot of territory from any nation in 
the world. I myself share to the bot- 
tom of my heart that profound love 
for peace. I have sought to maintain 
peace against very great, and some 
times very unfair odds, and I am 
ready, at any time, to use every power 
that is in me to prevent such a catas- 



8 



trophe as war coming upon this coun- 
try. So that it is not permissible for 
any man to say with anxiety that the 
defense of the nation has the least 
tinge in it of desire for power which 
can be used to bring on war. 

But, gentlemen, there is something 
that the American people love better 
than they love peace. They love the 
principles upon which their political 
life is founded. They are ready at 
any time to fight for the vindication 
of their character and of their honor. 
They will at no time seek a contest, 
but they will at no time cravenly avoid 
it. Because if there is one thing that 
the country ought to fight for and that 
every nation ought to fight for, it is 
the integrity of its own convictions. 
We cannot surrender our convictions. 
I would rather surrender territory 
than surrender those ideals which are 
the staff of life for the soul itself. 

Holding Ideals for Others 

And because we hold certain ideals, 
we have thought it was right we 
should hold them for others as well 
as for ourselves. America has more 
than once given evidence of the gen- 
erosity and disinterestedness of its 
love of liberty. It has been willing to 
fight for the liberty of others as well 
as for its own liberty. The world 
sneered when we set out for the liber- 
ation of Cuba, but the world does not 
sneer any longer. The world now 
knows what it was then loath to be- 
lieve, that a nation can sacrifice its 
own interests and its own blood for 
the sake of the liberty and happiness 
of another people. And whether by 
one process or another we have made 
ourselves in some sort the champions 
of free government and national 
sovereignty in both continents of this 
hemisphere. 

So that there are certain obligations, 
which every American knows, that we 
have undertaken. The first and pri- 
mary obligation is the maintenance of 
the integrity of our own sovereignty 
— which goes as of course. There is 



also the maintenance of our liberty to 
develop our political institutions with- 
out hindrance, and last of all, there 
is the determination and the obliga- 
tion to stand as the strong brotlier of 
all those in this hemisphere who will 
maintain the same principles and fol- 
low the same ideals of liberty. 

Mexico and World Politics 

May I venture to insert here a par- 
enthesis? Have any of you thought 
of this? We have slowly, very slowly 
indeed, begun to win the confidence of 
the other states of the American hemi- 
sphere. If we should go into Mexico, 
do you know what would happen? All 
the sympathies of the rest of America 
would look across the water, and not 
northward to the great republic which 
we profess to represent. And do you 
not see the consequences that would 
ensue in every international relation- 
ship? Have the gentlemen who have 
rushed down to Washington to insist 
that we should go into Mexico re- 
flected upon the politics of the world? 

Time and Opinion 

Nobody seriously supposes, gentle- 
men, that the United States needs to 
fear an invasion of its own territory. 
What America has to fear, if she has 
anything to fear, are indirect, round- 
about, flank movements, upon her reg- 
nant position in the Western Hemi- 
sphere. Are we going to open those 
gates, or are we going to close them? 
For they are the gates to the hearts of 
our American friends to the south of 
us, and not gates to the ports. Win 
their spirits and you have won the 
only sort of leadership and the only 
sort of safety that America covets. 
We must all of us think, from this 
time out, gentlemen, in terms of the 
world, and must learn what it is that 
America has set out to maintain as a 
standard bearer for all those who love 
liberty and justice and the righteous- 
ness of political action. 

But, gentlemen, we must find means 
to do this thing which are suitable to 



the time and suitable to our own 
ideals. Suitable to the time : Does 
anybody understand the time? Per- 
haps when you learned, as I dare say 
you did learn beforehand, that I was 
expecting to address you on the sub- 
ject of preparedness, you recalled the 
address which I made to Congress 
something more than a year ago, in 
which I said that this question of 
military preparedness was not a 
pressing questior). But more than 
a year has gone by since then, 
and I would be ashamed if I had 
not learned something in fourteen 
months. The minute I stop chang- 
ing my mind as President with 
the change of all the circumstances in 
the world, I will be a back number. 

Tariff Board 

There is another thing about which 
I have changed my mind. A year ago 
I was not in favor of a tariff board. 
And I will tell you why ; because then 
the only purpose of a tariff board was 
to keep alive an unprofitable contro- 
versy. If you set up any board of in- 
quiry whose purpose it is to keep busi- 
ness disturbed and to make it always 
an open question what you are going 
to do about the public policy of the 
Government, I am opposed to it. And 
the very men who were dinning it 
into our ears that what business 
wanted was to be let alone, were many 
of them men who were insisting that 
we should start up a controversy that 
meant that we could not let it alone. 
There is a great deal more opinion 
vocal in this world than is consistent 
with logic. 

But the circumstances of the pres- 
ent time are these : There is going on 
in the world, under our eyes, an eco- 
nomic revolution. No man under- 
stands that revolution, no man has the 
elements of it clearly in his mind, no 
part of the business of legislation with 
regard to international trade can be 
undertaken until we do understand it. 
And members of Congress are too 
busy, their duties are too multifarious 



and distracting, to make it possible 
within a sufficiently short space of 
time for them to master the change 
that is coming. 

Respect for Facts 

I hear a great many things predicted 
about the end of the war, but I don't 
know anything about what is going to 
happen when the war is over, and 
neither do you. There are two dia- 
metrically opposed views as to immi- 
gration. Some men tell us that at 
least a million men are going to leave 
the country, and others tell us that 
many millions are going to rush into 
it. Neither party knows what they are 
talking about; and I am one of those 
prudent individuals who would really 
like to know the facts before he 
forms an opinion ; not out of wisdom, 
but out of prudence. I have lived long 
enough to know that if I do not, the 
facts will get away with me. I have 
come to have a wholesome respect for 
the facts. I have had to yield to them 
sometimes before I saw them coming, 
and that has led me to keep a weather 
eye open in order that I may see them 
coming. 

There is so much to understand that 
we have not the data to comprehend, 
that I for one would not dare, so far 
as my advice is concerned, to leave the 
government without the adequate 
means of inquiry. 

Future Uncertain 

But that is another parenthesis. 
What I am trying to impress upon you 
now is that the circumstances of the 
world to-day are not what they were 
yesterday, or what they were in any of 
our yesterdays ; and that it is not cer- 
tain what they will be to-morrow. I 
can not tell you what the international 
relations of this country will be to- 
morrow, and I use the word literally. 
And I would not dare keep silent and 
let the country suppose that to-mor- 
row was certain to be as bright as 
today. 

America will never be the aggres- 



10 



sor; America will always seek to the 
last point, at which her honor is in- 
volved, to avoid the things which dis- 
turb the peace of the world. But 
America does not control the circum- 
stances of the world, and we must be 
sure that we are faithful servants of 
those things which we love, and are 
ready to defend them against every 
contingency that may affect or impair 
them. 

No Militarism 

But, as I was saying a moment ago, 
we must seek the means which are 
consistent with the principles of our 
lives. It goes without saying, though 
apparently it is necessary to say it to 
some excited persons, that one thing 
this country never will endure is a 
system that can be called militarism. 
But militarism consists in preparing a 
great machine whose only use is for 
war, and giving it no use to which to 
apply itself. Men who are in charge 
of edged tools and bidden prepare 
them for exact and scientific use, grow 
very impatient if they are not per- 
mitted to use them, and I do not be- 
lieve that the creation of such an in- 
strument is an insurance of peace. I 
believe that it involves the danger of 
all the temptations that skillful per- 
sons have, to use the things that they 
know how to use. But we don't have 
to do that. America is always going 
to use her army in two ways. She is 
going to use it for the purposes of 
peace, and she is going to use it as a 
nucleus for expansion in those 
things which she does believe in, 
namely, the preparation of her citizens 
to take care of themselves. 

Industrial Preparation 

There are two sides to the question 
of preparation. There is not merely 
the military side, there is the indus- 
trial side. And tlie ideal which I have 
in mind is this, gentlemen : We ought 
to have in this country a great system 
of industrial and vocational education, 
under federal guidance, and with fed- 



eral aid, in which a very large per- 
centage of the youth of this country 
will be given training in the skillful 
use and application of the principles 
of science in maneuvre and business. 
And it will be perfectly feasible and 
highly desirable to add to that and 
combine with it such a training in the 
mechanism and use and care of arms, 
in the sanitation of camp ; in the sim- 
pler forms of maneuvre and organiza- 
tion, as will make these same men in- 
dustrially efficient and individually 
serviceable for national defense. 

The point about such a system will 
be that its emphasis will lie on the in- 
dustrial and civil side of life ; and that, 
like all the rest of America the use of 
force will only be in the background 
and as the last resort. So that men 
will think first of their families and 
their daily work, of their service in 
the economic fields of the country, and 
only last of all of their serviceability 
to the nation as soldiers and men at 
arms. That is the ideal of America. 
But you cannot create such a system 
over night. You cannot create such a 
system rapidly. It has got to be built 
up ; and I hope it will be built up by 
slow and effective stages. And there 
is something to be done in the mean- 
time. We must see to it that a suffi- 
cient body of citizens is given the kind 
of training which will make them effi- 
cient for call into the field in case of 
necessity. 

Waste of Force 

It is discreditable to this country, 
for this is a country full of intelligent 
men, that we should have exhibited to 
the world the example we have some- 
times exhibited to it of stupidity and 
brutal waste of force. Think of ask- 
ing men who can be easily drawn to 
come into the field, crude, ignorant, 
inexperienced, and merely furnish the 
stuff for camp fever and the bullets 
of the enemy. 

The sanitary experience of our army 
in the Spanish War was merely an 
indictment of America's indifference 



11 



to the manifest lessons of experience 
in the matter of ordinary preparation. 
We have got the men to waste, but 
God forbid that we should waste them. 
Men who go as efficient instruments 
of national honor into the field afford 
a very handsome spectacle indeed, but 
men who go in crude and ignorant 
boys, only indict those in authority 
for stupidity and neglect. And so it 
seems to me that it is our manifest 
duty to have a proper citizen reserve. 
National Guard 

I am not forgetting our National 
Guard. I had the privilege of being 
Governor of one of our great States 
— a State which furnishes this city 
with a great deal of its intelligence. 
Some Jerseymen on either side here 
enjoy that very much. 

As Governor of New Jersey I was 
brought into association with what I 
am glad to believe was one of the most 
efficient portions of the National 
Guard of the United States. I learned 
to admire the men, to respect the offi- 
cers, and to believe in the National 
Guard. And I believe that it is the 
duty of Congress to do very much 
more for the National Guard than it 
has ever done heretofore. I believe 
that that great arm of our national 
defense should be built up and encour- 
aged to the utmost. But, you know 
that under the Constitution of the 
United States it is under the direction 
of more than two score States, and 
that it is not permitted to the National 
Government directly to direct its de- 
velopment and organization. And that 
only upon occasion of actual invasion 
has the President of the United States 
the right to ask those men to leave 
their respective States. I, for my part, 
am afraid, though some gentlemen dif- 
fer with me, that there is no way in 
which that force can be made a direct 
resource as a national reserve under 
national authority. 

A National Reserve 

What we need is a body of men 
trained in association with units of tlie 



army. A body of men organized un- 
der the immediate direction of the na- 
tional authorities. A body of men 
subject to the immediate call to arms 
of the national authority, and yet men 
not put into the ranks of the regular 
army; men left to their tasks of civil 
life ; men supplied with equipment and 
training, but not drawn from the 
peaceful pursuits which have made 
America great and must keep her 
great. 

I am not a partisan of any one plan. 
I have had too much experience to 
think that it is right to say that the 
plan which I proposed is the only plan 
that will work, because I have a 
shrewd suspicion that there may be 
other plans which will work. But what 
I am for, and what every American 
ought to insist upon, is a body of at 
least half a million trained citizens 
who will serve under conditions of 
danger as an immediately available na- 
tional reserve. 

The Navy 

I am not saying anything about the 
Navy, because I don't want to go to 
sea. I want to stick to the one theme 
to-night, because for some reason 
there is not the same controversy 
about the Navy that there is about the 
Army. The Navy is obvious and eas- 
ily understood. The Army apparently 
is very difficult to comprehend and un- 
derstand. We have a traditional pre- 
judice against armies which makes us 
stop thinking the minute we begin talk- 
ing about them. We suppose that all 
armies are alike, and that there can 
not be an American system in this in- 
stance, but that it must be the Euro- 
pean system, and that is what I for 
one am trying to divest my own mind 
of. The Navy is so obvious an instru- 
ment of national defense, that I be- 
lieve that with the differences of opin- 
ion about the detail, it is not going to 
be difficult to carry out a proper and 
reasonable program for the increase 
of the Navy. But that is another 
story ; and you know I have to give a 



12 



good many speeches in the near fu- 
ture, and I must save something to 
subsequent days. My theme to-night 
is National Defense on Land, where 
we seem most ignorant of it and most 
neghgent about it. 

Political Accounting 

I do not want to leave upon your 
minds the impression that I have any 
anxiety as to the outcome, for I have 
not the slightest. There is only one 
way that parties and individuals win 
the confidence of this nation and that 
is to do the things that ought to be 
done. Nobody is going to be deceived. 
Speeches are not going to win elec- 
tions. The facts are going to speak 
for themselves, and speak louder than 
anybody who controverts them. No 
political party, no group of men can 
ever disappoint America. This is a 
year of political accounting, and 
Americans in politics are rather ex- 
pert accountants. They know what 
the books contain and they are not 
going to be deceived by it. No man is 
going to hide behind any excuses. The 
goods must be delivered or the confi- 
dence will not be enjoyed; and for my 
part I hope every man in public life 
will get what is coming to him. 



For National Accord 

But if this is true, gentlemen, it is 
because of the things that lie much 
deeper than laughter, much deeper 
than cheers ; that lie down at the very 
roots of our life. America refuses to 
be deceived about the things which 
most concern her, national honor, na- 
tional safety. All have confidence in 
everything that she represents. It is 
a solemn time when men must exam- 
ine not only their purposes, but their 
hearts, when men must purge them- 
selves of individual ambition, when 
men must see to it that they are ready 
for the utmost self-sacrifice in the in- 
terest of the common welfare. 

Let no man dare be a marplot. Let 
no man bring partisan passion into 
these great things. Let men honestly 
debate the facts, and courageously act 
upon them, and then there will come 
that day when the world will say, 
"This America that we thought was 
full of a multitude of contrary ideas, 
now speaks with the great volume of 
the heart's accord, and that great heart 
of America has behind it the moral 
force of righteousness and the hope 
and the liberty of mankind." 



13 



REQUESTS FOR COPIES 

of this pamphlet will be welcome from all 
those desiring to place it in the hands of 
their representatives or friends. Copies fur- 
nished or sent direct to lists upon applica- 
tion to Frank W. Noxon, Secretary Railway- 
Business Association, 30 Church Street, New 
York. 



Form B185 

15 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



020 914 153 fl 



V 



020 914 153 A 



ij^ll: ^- r*. 



